Good to finally see some changes at No Idea
Bauer has also announced that OK! magazine will donate $1 from every issue sold this week towards bushfire relief.
As the article shows, Fiona Connolly has been promoted to group publisher of weekly titles, putting her in charge of Bauer’s weeklies including OK!, Woman’s Day, NW, Take 5 and TV Week. Fiona was promoted to the new role in early December 2019. The magazine’s deputy editor Erin Holohan was appointed editor.
According to The Australian, private equity suitor Mercury Capital has abandoned its plan to buy Bauer Media. Mercury’s decision comes after the ACCC stymied local magazine consolidation last month, citing concerns about the industry’s outlook if the two biggest magazine publishers (Bauer and Pacific Magazines) were allowed to merge.
Mumbrella reporting that
Bauer Media given all clear to acquire Seven West Media’s Pacific Magazines
Two of Australia’s largest magazine publishers will come together, with the competition watchdog today giving the green light to Bauer Media’s bid to purchase Seven West Media’s Pacific Magazines.
Seven West Media anticipates the sale will be completed as soon as 9 April.
Good news for 7, finally able to offload another asset and free up some much needed cash.
That means New Idea and Woman’s Day will be under the same publisher by Easter. Bauer will have its work cut out building relationship between the two teams.
Considering Bauer’s history in Australia they’re more likely to shut one down.
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It might become a “Woman’s Day incorporating New Idea” situation in the same way that we had “TV Week incorporating TV Times & TV Guide” 
Or a consolidated magazine with the best bits called be called
New Day , The Goss, New or …
What a massive loss for diversity in the Australian media industry a potential merger of Woman’s Day and New Idea would be…not really.
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Long ago both used to be reputable magazines, when Woman’s Day was owned by Fairfax and then PBL, and New Idea was owned by News. Though in later years under those owners both went down in the gutter.
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And good that they don’t have to be associated with the magazine equivalent of pond scum.
Respected magazines with useful information 30+ years ago under the leadership of Nene King and Dulcie Boling. Celebrity and royal news was still their bread and butter but at least it wasn’t unfounded gossip and straight out lies. I wouldn’t wipe my arse on either of those magazines these days and I’m desperate for toilet paper.
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The deal seems like it may fall over due to COVID-19?
https://twitter.com/aus_media/status/1243106233327869952?s=19
But Seven West Media
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Sad day, it could spell the end of the Listener, an NZ icon for decades.
Apparently they’re looking to offload the magazines still.
I have a feeling they wont be the only ones to pull stumps.
Bauer said the NZ Government’s decision to classify magazine printing as non-essential business under level 4 lockdown to combat coronavirus, played a part in the closure of local business. If that is true, then I think the NZ Government made a huge mistake. In NZ, magazines are often printed in the same plants as newspapers, and it has been proven the risk of transmitting through paper is very low.
I’ve had time to reflect on this, and have realised Bauer NZ’s failure has nothing to do with Covid-19. I think they’d always planned to pull the plug on April 3… new financial year, also not mistakable as an April Fools’ joke, and their discussions with the Govt implied they had no intentions of surviving past now. Bauer’s NZ failure has all the hallmarks of schisterism.
They failed because they didn’t do what newsprint companies had done in the past - consolodate. As far back as the 1800’s, newspapers in NZ have merged to stay afloat. There’s a long tradition of it, and it wouldn’t have been impossible to apply to their modern fleet of magazines. How different was the Listener to the North & South really? They could have easily folded their women’s mag’s into one, perhaps also with the design/cookery rags too.
They’ve also failed to follow the market. If eyeballs are going social, then go social. Shorten your articles to 300 words, drip-feed them over a week through reliable channels and then publish a hardcopy of everyone once a week/month for those who want it.
I think they didn’t try hard enough… probably because the accountants are in charge, and not people who actually care about publishing something.
And finally, Bill Ralston’s comments on the matter were misleading, so unless he didn’t know the whole story at the time, all I’m willing to say about Bill is that he’s no Brian Edwards!
EDIT> And now this (RNZ Mediawatch Article), I’ve not idea what’s going on. Maybe the German’s don’t love us anymore?
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Totally Agree I still think there’s a market for a tv / radio entertainment magazine without current affairs etc & not too high brow more like radio times (uk) RTÉ Guide (Ireland)
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